There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.

For, as I think I have said, I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.